Today's Stichomancy for H. P. Lovecraft

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac:

Heloise was splendidly dressed. Bixiou, her lover, had brought her in his carriage on the way to an evening party at Mariette's. It so fell out that the first-floor lodger, M. Chapoulot, a retired braid manufacturer from the Rue Saint-Denis, returning from the Ambigu- Comique with his wife and daughter, was dazzled by a vision of such a costume and such a charming woman upon their staircase.

"Who is that, Mme. Cibot?" asked Mme. Chapoulot.

"A no-better-than-she-should-be, a light-skirts that you may see half- naked any evening for a couple of francs," La Cibot answered in an undertone for Mme. Chapoulot's ear.

"Victorine!" called the braid manufacturer's wife, "let the lady pass,

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll:

those anklets round his feet.'

`But what are they for?' Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.

`To guard against the bites of sharks,' the Knight replied. `It's an invention of my own. And now help me on. I'll go with you to the end of the wood--What's the dish for?'

`It's meant for plum-cake,' said Alice.

`We'd better take it with us,' the Knight said. `It'll come in handy if we find any plum-cake. Help me to get it into this bag.'

This took a very long time to manage, though Alice held the bag open very carefully, because the Knight was so VERY awkward

Through the Looking-Glass

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from New Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson:

No grown up person being by, Do some soft corner occupy; Take you this volume in your hands And enter into other lands, For lo! (as children feign) suppose You, hunting in the garden rows, Or in the lumbered attic, or The cellar - a nail-studded door And dark, descending stairway found That led to kingdoms underground: There standing, you should hear with ease

The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Tanach:

2_Chronicles 5: 1 Thus all the work that Solomon wrought for the house of the LORD was finished. And Solomon brought in the things that David his father had hallowed; even the silver, and the gold, and all the vessels, and put them in the treasuries of the house of God.

2_Chronicles 5: 2 Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the princes of the fathers' houses of the children of Israel, unto Jerusalem, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, which is Zion.

2_Chronicles 5: 3 And all the men of Israel assembled themselves unto the king at the feast, which was in the seventh month.

2_Chronicles 5: 4 And all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark.

2_Chronicles 5: 5 And they brought up the ark, and the tent of meeting, and all the holy vessels that were in the Tent; these did the priests and the Levites bring up.

2_Chronicles 5: 6 And king Solomon and all the congregation of Israel, that were assembled unto him, were before the ark, sacrificing sheep and oxen, that could not be counted nor numbered for multitude.

2_Chronicles 5: 7 And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the LORD unto its place, into the Sanctuary of the house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubim.

2_Chronicles 5: 8 For the cherubim spread forth their wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark and the staves thereof above.

The Tanach